Memory Of Water

Last month we spent a long weekend in Northern Arizona visiting a canyon. And of course by "a canyon" I mean the Grand Canyon. What else could I possibly be talking about? 

It feels like a long time since I've been to a canyon. It's not something that I seek out for visits very often. I'm not sure I can even remember the last time I went to anything resembling a canyon, let alone named a canyon. I'm thinking maybe Zion National Park in 2015. Does Hovenweap's mini canyon in 2020 count? I'm not sure. Canyons are just not my thing, I guess.

So how did we spend the day after our trip to the Grand Canyon? Well...by visiting another canyon. What else? Grand Canyon done. Time to visit Antelope Canyon.

Now, there is the very real possibility that you have no idea what I'm talking about when I write Antelope Canyon. But believe me, there's a very real possibility you know Antelope Canyon, even if it's just through online pictures of sinuous red-orange carved rock lit magnificently through cracks and crevices by the hot desert sun. You know...like the pictures above and below this introduction. Somehow, somewhere, you've likely seen some pictures of Antelope Canyon.

And it's very likely that you have been wowed by the photos.

I wanted to take and have pictures like you (and I) have seen online. But more than just the pictures, I wanted to find out more about this thing. It's not a canyon in the sense that the Grand Canyon is a canyon. And by that I mean a giant, gaping place in the planet way wider than it is deep. The Grand Canyon is a mile deep and at its widest point 18 miles wide. Antelope Canyon isn't like that. It's way smaller. It's also a slot canyon.

What's a slot canyon, you ask? I had to look it up. And just so you don't have to look that same information up...

A slot canyon is a canyon with a depth to width ratio of anywhere 10 to 1 to 100 to 1. That's a canyon that's between ten times deep and 100 times deep as it is wide. At its widest point, the Grand Canyon has a depth to width ratio of 1 to 18. Not 18 to 1; 1 to 18. If the Grand Canyon had a 10 to 1 depth to width ratio, it would be a tenth of a mile wide and a mile deep. That's pretty deep and skinny. If it had a 100 to 1 depth to width ratio, it would be 1/100th of a mile (or 53 feet) wide and a mile deep. THAT is a slot canyon.

The Grand Canyon was formed by the slow action of the Colorado River carving it's way through the Earth over millions of year. Not so with Antelope Canyon. Slot canyons are formed by sudden torrents of water moving at a very high rate of speed through soft rock (like sandstone). These sudden torrents of water are flash floods, which are typically only common enough to create something like Antelope Canyon in very dry locations where there is effectively no way for the land to absorb sudden large rainstorms. The carving of the rock is caused by the water moving at extreme speed and the fact that the water is carrying abrasive dirt and sand. Water carves out both large open canyons like the Grand Canyon and tall thin canyons that are slot canyons. But the action and the result is totally different.

Those flash floods, by the way, are still doing their work. If it rains at the wrong time, Antelope Canyon can be flooded with water to 25 or 30 feet deep in a heartbeat. Sound dangerous? Well, if there's nobody watching the weather, then I guess it is. But they typically only happen during monsoon season in July and August.

To get to Antelope Canyon, you need to do two things: (1) drive to the Navajo Nation in northern Arizona and (2) book a tour. You need to do the first because Antelope Canyon is on land owned by the Navajo. You need to do the second because since 1997, taking a guided tour is the only legal way to visit. 

Before 1997, the Canyon was just open to anyone who could get themselves there. And there were side effects of that completely open availability. That meant trash, graffiti and those pesky and extremely dangerous flash floods. Since '97, it's been guided only. 

We booked our tour through Roger Ekis' Antelope Canyon Tours who took us out into the desert to visit Upper Antelope Canyon. And, yes, there IS a Lower Antelope Canyon (and more). We picked our trip based on reviews off TripAdvisor and figured we didn't need to do both Upper and Lower Antelope Canyons. Aren't they pretty much the same? We don't know that answer to that question necessarily. 

When we checked those TripAdvisor reviews, by the way, most were super positive, but some were overly critical about what I will sum up as the staged photography nature of the tour. More than one review complained about what I interpreted as a scripted tour where everyone on the tour was tutored in photography of the canyon so that everyone would emerge with the best (and presumably the same) pictures of the place. I'm not a huge fan of believing negative reviews, particularly when the majority of the reviews of any experience are very positive. Still, there were concerns there.

Don't get me wrong, I wanted those best pictures. But I also wanted freedom to take more than the classic photographs that everyone went home with. I hoped I'd get that.

I also just wanted find out what this place was really like. The images that are shown online are completely context-less. How do you get to the Canyon? How do you get into it and out of it? What's it like to walk through? How tall is it? Are there ever any people in this thing because there are never any photos with people in them it seems. I assumed I'd get this.

Antelope head in the top photo. The bottom is the sunrise and sunset scene.

So first of all...yes, the tour we took was heavily focused towards a series of what I'll call classic views of Upper Antelope Canyon. We were advised how to set the screen brightness and the filter on whatever version of the iPhone or Android phone that we happened to have with us and in a couple of spots, our guide actually took the same picture for each group on the tour. We have a vertical panoramic shot of us standing at the entrance to the Canyon and color and black and white versions of a spot where if you take the photo just right, it appears that you have angel wings. So does everyone else on our tour.

There's also a face in one spot, a couple of bears, an antelope, a sunrise / sunset scene and an alien. And the tour stops so everyone can take the exact same pictures. Everyone.

But you know what? If you didn't want to do any of that, that was fine too. If you wanted to do your own thing and take whatever pictures you like, you could. And so we did. We took part in most of the staged photographs but we also took pictures of whatever the heck we wanted. Our guide, Cindy, was just awesome. She was patient and thorough and even gave a very effective demonstration using water and the sand near the canyon of exactly how it was formed. The tour was honestly fantastic. And I think we emerged with some amazing photos.

But I really wanted to find out what the deal behind this canyon was. And we did that too.

The Grand Canyon is a large, long gash in the surface of the Earth. When you are standing outside the Grand Canyon you are on a very large and very flat high desert plateau and to look at the canyon you stand on the edge and look down. Want to walk into the Grand Canyon? Find a trail and walk down.

Antelope Canyon isn't that. It's effectively a very large sandstone lump (I was going to use the term boulder but it's way, way larger than a boulder) sitting on the surface of the Earth with a very large and not necessarily straight crack running straight through the middle of it. It honestly looks like some secret cavern or hideout from some fantasy or science fiction movie or series. I'm thinking Star Wars, Game of Thrones or Dune here. It's astonishingly different than the Grand Canyon. It's in fact probably as dissimilar as an experience as you could possibly get from two places with the word "canyon" in their names.

It's a heck of an entrance. And I swear I've never seen this is any of the pictures online.

The Navajo call Upper Antelope Canyon Tsé bighánílíni or "the place where the water runs through rocks". But they also refer to it as "The Crack", which is appropriate because that's exactly what it is.

The entrance to Upper Antelope Canyon.

Once you step into Antelope Canyon, you are in the world that shows up in the pictures online. You don't have to walk 20 minutes or so or even into the second "room" of the Canyon. Step in and you are in. All the way in. The sand path and light ahead of you hints at the way through the Canyon but look up and that rock just hangs over you like billowing sails frozen in time. The colors and the shapes are just amazing. Something that really only nature can create while it's almost unbelievable at the same time that nature can actually do this. 

It's tall. We were told 120 feet tall at its deepest point. You are dwarfed by the rock but you also don't feel like you are at the bottom of something really deep, particularly because you can rarely look straight up to the sky because the rock twists and turns above you. You don't feel like you are in a canyon in the traditional sense. 

It is also tight. There are places you can spread your arms and touch the smooth and at the same time rough rock walls (which are decidedly not anywhere close to vertical) on either side of you. Having said that, our group was I'd say 15 in size and I really didn't feel cramped for space that often. Touching, by the way, is encouraged.

The Canyon is tall.

The time we were allotted in the Canyon itself was about 30 minutes. It honestly felt longer. This experience was not rushed in any way, although I'm sure it helped that we were on the last bus from the tour company we selected and I'm sure Cindy allowed us a little latitude to dawdle a bit.

We walked through the entire length of the Canyon. I'm guessing it was between a quarter and a half a mile long, then we walked out of the back side of the Canyon, up a sandy hill and back over the top of another piece of rock that was to the left of The Crack as we entered. 

Did we see Lower Antelope Canyon while we were there? No we did not. We drove by it on the way to Upper Antelope Canyon but it's really nowhere near the place we visited. It's a totally different lump of rock with some sort of vertical fissure created by flash floods, rock and sand. There are apparently four additional parts of Antelope Canyon you can visit but it's not like they are contiguous or anything. They are likely just different sandstone canyons that look a little different. That's not what I imagined at all. I figured they would all be connected. Physically that is, not metaphorically.

Looking up at the branch of a tree in Upper Antelope Canyon.

This place is magical. It is as breathtaking as the pictures I saw before I got here. And by breathtaking, I really do mean it. That first room that you step into is astonishing. It is simultaneously gorgeous in its form and awe inspiring in its structural beauty. I can't really remember feeling this same way recently about a place we've visited that wasn't built by man.

I can also confidently say that there's no way I want to be in a place like this during a flash flood. As we walked through the Canyon, we saw limbs of trees wedged into the crannies of the Canyon above us. And not like at eye level or on the ground. Try like 25 or 30 feet above us. That means the water level during a flood is really that high. Can you imagine the force of a 25 foot high wall of water coursing through a narrow slot canyon all of a sudden? I'm not sure I want to.

On the name...we didn't see any antelopes when we visited. Antelope Canyon is located near Page, Arizona, which was established in the 1950s when Lake Powell was formed by when a dam was built nearby. When the Lake was formed, it interrupted the travel patterns of the pronghorn that lived in the area. Proghorn are often referred to as antelope but are really no such thing. That wouldn't be the only misnomer out there about wildlife in the American west.

Exiting Upper Antelope Canyon.

But...that's not the whole story. There are three more things. Yes, I know, three is a lot more things. I'll try to be brief.

First thing: The time.

When we booked our tour with Antelope Canyon Tours, every confirmation and reminder email we received (and there were a lot of emails...) prominently reminded us that our tour would operate on Phoenix time and to remember that. We figured this reminder was likely because the state of Arizona doesn't participate in Daylight Saving Time and that if you were coming from Utah (Page is just south of the Utah border) and didn't remember that the state immediately south of you was an hour behind you from March through October, you'd be an hour early.

So we are cruising along Arizona Highway 89 and all of a sudden the time on Waze jumps forward an hour. Arrival time is now 10:05 a.m. for a 9:50 a.m. tour time. What the heck? Did we somehow get delayed? Did we actually leave Flagstaff later than we thought we left? We were a little freaked out. We can't be late for this tour, can we? We checked the time in Flagstaff and in Page and both locations showed an hour earlier than Waze (which was really operating off the phone time) showed.

So we decided to check the time zone map of Arizona. As it turns out, not all of Arizona refuses to participate in Daylight Saving Time (see map below borrowed from the Department of Transportation website). The northeast corner of Arizona DOES observe Daylight Saving Time. But not the WHOLE northeast corner; there's a little piece of the northeast corner that is not connected to the rest of the non-DST-observing part of Arizona that also refuses to acknowledge Daylight Saving Time. And we happened to be traveling from the DST-denying portion of Arizona and through the DST-compliant piece of Arizona to the smaller DST-denying portion of the state. 

We weren't late. The time changed back to Phoenix time 1.6 miles from Antelope Canyon Tours' office. But as people who don't like to be late EVER, this was a little freaky.

Second thing: The bags.

The other reminder that we received (over and over and over again) in emails from Antelope Canyon Tours before we showed up in Page was that no bags were allowed on the tour. Check that...no opaque bags. Clear bags are cool. And they DO sell clear bags in the gift store.

We run into this kind of thing when we attend sporting events and we assume it's so people can't bring bottles of alcohol into the event but why would anyone bring booze on a Canyon tour in the middle of the day? So we asked when we checked in. The answer? People sometimes bring their trash and leave it up at the Canyon. This made no sense to us. It's OK for me to bring trash in a clear bag that I might leave for good out in the Canyon but it's no good if the bag in not clear?

But when we boarded the bus, we were reminded no non-clear bags and we were also asked to shake our water bottles. Huh?

As it turns out, the issue isn't trash, it's ash. Like ashes of deceased loved ones. Why anyone who is not Navajo feels like they should bring their dead relatives' remains out to this place is beyond me. But apparently people do it. And when they do, the Canyon has to be closed, cleaned and blessed before it can re-open. Don't bring human remains here, people. Please!!

Navajo Taco, Hope's Frybread.

Third thing: The frybread.

This trip had one more foray into Navajo culture and history besides just visiting Antelope Canyon. On our way up to the Flagstaff area, we stopped for lunch at Hope’s Frybread, a Navajo-owned restaurant in Mesa, just east of the Phoenix airport. I’ve had frybread before, most notably on my 2001 vacation to Arizona in the fall of that year. I can still remember the frybread topped with pineapple I had outside the San Xavier Del Bac Mission on the Tohono O’odham reservation just south of Tucson on that trip. Frybread is basically flour and water made into a crude dough and then deep-fried in oil. It was invented by the Navajo in the 1860s but it is very decidedly not an historic native American food. It was invented out of necessity based on cruel treatment of the Navajo by the United States government.

 

The Navajo, like many (or is it all?) Native American peoples, were eventually confined to a non-traditional territory by the government of the United States. “Non-traditional” in that previous sentence really means pretty much undesirable and way smaller than lands they had previously lived off. The best parts of their former land, of course, were taken for use by American settlers of European ancestry. Confinement meant just that: don’t leave the assigned area. But some Navajo didn’t want to obey rules they had no part in making, which brought punishment from the men (usually Army officers) assigned to keep the Navajo in their assigned spot in the new American southwest.

 

The punishment for 10,000 Navajo for a few of their people leaving their assigned territory against the Army’s orders? A forced 300-mile march from the west side of what is now New Mexico to the east side of that same state with a subsequent internment for about four years. It’s now referred to as the Long Walk of the Navajo. Of the 10,000 forced to walk across the southwestern desert, approximately 35% of those died either during the Long Walk or during captivity.

 

A major cause of death was starvation, a result of the inadequate rations provided by the government to the Navajo. Part of the meager provisions made available to the Navajo were flour, lard and sugar, which Navajo women used to make a kind of dough from flour and water which they could then deep-fry in the heated lard. That frybread is the origin of the stuff we ate on our way to Flagstaff and is regarded as a symbol of Navajo resilience. Rather than allowing the substandard ingredients they were forced to live with, the Navajo women in the 1860s turned those raw materials into something that allowed their people to survive. I see it as an eff you to the United States Government and I love that.

So before we headed north to Flagstaff and Upper Antelope Canyon, we had a Navajo Taco at Hope's. Ground beef, beans, cheese, lettuce, tomato and some kind of spicy sauce atop bread improvised from substandard ingredients. It kept me fed and nourished until Flagstaff.

The Biggest Goddamn Hole In The World

Apologies for the language in this post title. I blame Clark Griswold.

There are times in my life when I realize how lucky I am. March 2026 is one of those times. 

Last weekend we visited the Grand Canyon in Northern Arizona. Do I feel particularly lucky that I made it to that National Park in 2026? Not particularly. But I do feel lucky that it was my third trip there. I mean it's in the middle of nowhere and I've been there three times. A lot of people in this world are never able to move much beyond the place where they were born or the country where they live. Some folks scrimp and save so they can take a trip of a lifetime or get away for a week in a year. This was a weekend trip to some place that I'd already been to twice that a lot of people would have on some bucket list and not be certain that they would ever get there. 

I feel lucky to have been able to do this. After I've already done it twice before.

The first time I laid eyes on the Grand Canyon was in the summer of 1984 when my dad took an all-expenses paid recruiting trip (HE was being recruited) courtesy of a startup aerospace firm in the Phoenix area. At least I think it was a startup. I mean I really don't remember if I ever even knew. And the all-expenses thing probably didn't cover our side trip to see the Grand Canyon. Whatever. Close enough. That's why we were there in '84.

What do I remember about that Grand Canyon trip just after I turned 16? Pretty much nothing. I couldn't tell you what we did or what we saw, although I feel pretty confident that we looked down into it and that three of the four of our family members took a ride in a small airplane into the Canyon and that I don't recall actually walking into the Canyon at all. And on the airplane thing, it was probably below the rim. Not 100% sure. That memory (or lack thereof) is actually one of the inspirations behind me writing this blog. I reminisced about what I could not recall from my first visit to the Grand Canyon in the very first post on this blog back on my 45th birthday.

Trip number two? 26 years later. July 2010. Solo. On that trip I was determined to do one thing I hadn't done in 1984 and that was to actually walk into the Canyon. Not like all the way or anything but at least so I could get below the rim a good distance. I joined a ranger walk first thing in the morning with a big bottle of water I probably picked up at a convenience store somewhere near where I was staying (this was before I routinely took a water bottle on vacation) and spent maybe an hour and a half on a hike into and out of the Canyon. Cool stuff.

Now I have been there a third time.

The Abyss. Hermit's Rest Shuttle Bus stop number seven.

On a most basic level, the Grand Canyon is essentially a very large gash in the Earth in an otherwise very, very flat high desert plateau sitting about 7,000 feet above sea level. How did it get that way? Quite simply...the Colorado River made it that way. Over a very, very long period of time. Like millions of years. Sound farfetched? It did to us too a little bit but the land around the Grand Canyon is relatively soft and the Colorado River carries abrasive material like sand and rock particles that can cut through the sedimentary rock in the area of the Grand Canyon.

So how grand is the Grand Canyon? How about 270 miles long, 18 miles wide at its widest point and about a mile deep. Does that make it the biggest goddamn hole in the world? Maybe, although that question is really tough to answer. The Grand Canyon is not the longest canyon in the world (it's second) and it's not the widest canyon in the world (it's also second) and it's not the deepest canyon in the world (it's sixth). The Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon in Tibet is both longer and way deeper than the Grand Canyon but it's also way narrower. On a volume basis, maybe Clark Griswold was right. Either way, it's pretty darned big. 

Probably some good advice for Instagram influencers.

With all that going for it, the Grand Canyon must have been an early add to the National Parks portfolio, right? I mean we all know Yellowstone was number one but this place must have followed shortly thereafter, right? Like first 10 or so? 

Not so much. Try 14. February 1919. The same date as Maine's Acadia National Park and after South Dakota's Wind Cave and California's Lassen Volcanic. Why so long? Totally speculating here but this canyon thing is in the absolute middle of nowhere and despite its size, it was probably an undiscovered gem for quite some time.

Undiscovered by some. Those that were here before 1492 knew about it all well and good.

There is evidence of man's presence in and around the Grand Canyon 10 to 12 thousand years ago. There are 11 different Native American tribes which claim part of the Canyon as part of the ancestral homeland. But once Europeans started claiming parts and eventually all of what is now the American west, they didn't seem to be bothered about a massive canyon. Spanish explorers led by Hopi guides first visited the area in 1540s but apparently didn't see much point in the whole thing. Neither did anyone else for about the next 300 years. It pretty much sat ignored for three centuries.

Then in the middle of the nineteenth century, the United States started mapping the Colorado River. Miners followed after that, seeking copper deposits in the area but apparently it didn't take long before it became obvious that tourism would be more profitable than copper mining for early European settlers. President Benjamin Harrison protected the Canyon as a Forest Reserve in 1893. Theodore Roosevelt elevated it to National Monument status in 1903. Then in 1919, it got to full National Park status. 

The Grand Canyon is claimed as an ancestral homeland by 11 Native American tribes.

So that National Park property...it covers the entire Canyon, right? Ummm...no. Not remotely. On the South Rim of the Canyon, really the easternmost 30 miles are easily accessible (the North Rim was close when we visited last weekend). The Park goes beyond those limitations, but not by road. And with Flagstaff experiencing a +24 degrees above normal heatwave in our time there, we were in no mood to hike about beyond the paved limits of the Park for very long. Or at all.

And actually and honestly, the heat isn't why we chose to not hike beyond points we could drive or be driven. We just didn't want to hike in the backcountry. 

I would venture that the majority of the visitors to the Grand Canyon National Park don't make it the full 30 miles or so of the easternmost portion of the Park. I would imagine most visitors stay within the less than three miles from the Grand Canyon Village to the Grand Canyon Visitor Center and maybe a bit beyond to Yaki Point. There's plenty of overlook-ing to do into the big hole that is the Canyon and both major trails to walk into the Canyon are within that span (the Bright Angel Trail at the Village and the South Kaibob Trail at Yaki Point).

I base that venturing on two things: (1) I believe that's exactly what I did the first two times I visited the Park and (2) the amount of people we encountered this year when we moved beyond the less than three miles or so noted above.

Views from a viewpoint just east of Mather Point looking west (top) and east (bottom).

We decided we were not going to do what most people do. Yes, we walked to Mather Point from the Visitor Center and we did walk on one of the two trails that start within that span, but we wanted to go places that are more remote. Where there would stand a chance of being fewer people. We hopped on the Hermit's Rest Shuttle Bus in the morning and rode that route all the way to the west end, with three stops along the way. Then in the afternoon, we drove all the way out to Desert View at the eastern edge of the Park to see the historic 1932 Desert View Watchtower. And of course look into the vastness of the Canyon.

Our trip west and then back east again on the Hermit's Rest Shuttle took us about 2-1/2 hours. the Park's website says it's an 80 minute ride but that's not allowing for any stops. We stopped at four places and got a different perspective at each one. We (or I) stood not that close to the edge of a stone shelf overlooking the Canyon at Powell Point and we first laid eyes on the Colorado River later on the ride at Pima Point. In between those two we hit The Abyss where we looked what appeared to be about straight down a couple of thousand feet into the Canyon.

I think it is easy to dismiss the views in person and the pictures we look at after leaving the Grand Canyon as the same. Sure, the colors of the eroded and collapsed walls of the Canyon are the same sorts of reds, yellowish-beige and green with each mile of the Canyon you travel. It's also easy to look out over the rim of the Canyon and just be overwhelmed with the size and claim that you just see the same thing everywhere you look. Cliffs. Rocks. Towers. Gullies. Bare trees at the rim and tiny, hardy evergreen shrubs that can cling to life in a place without much water lower down.

But it's not the same. It's not just a hole in the ground that's identical from place to place and from mile to mile. It changes. I know this if for no other reason than we were awed in places that we visited along the South Rim and we were less impressed with some spots. The Canyon really does appear more vast in certain places than others and the appearance of the Colorado makes a difference in those views. If you need any other proof of this lack of same-ness, ride the Hermit's Rest Shuttle in the sideways-facing seats on the left side of the bus (facing the Canyon on the way out). In that seven mile drive, you will see a Canyon that changes as you ride. What a privilege to be able to do that.

Views near the Bright Angel Trail Head (top) and at Pima Point (bottom). Note: NOT the same.

If you want a little more distance to your vista, you can get that at the Desert View Tower. We didn't manage to go into the Tower while we were there and view the landscape from the top of the Tower (too long a wait on timed admission tickets...) but the Canyon edge that you walk along to get to the Tower is not strictly facing across the Canyon. You actually get to look down its length just a bit.

And it seems to go on forever, which from the edge of the Canyon and the distance our eyes can see I suppose might be true. The visibility in that part of Arizona is incredible. I'm sure it's due to the flat-ness of the land. Two days after our Grand Canyon visit we were at a viewpoint at Petrified Forest National Park and we could see the San Francisco Peaks north of Flagstaff on the horizon easily. They were 108 miles away from the spot we stood. You can definitely see for miles and miles.

If you need any convincing about the flatness of the land, check out the horizon on most all of these pictures. It's perfectly at eye level and it's pretty much perfectly flat.

Desert View.

So we had to take a little bit of a hike, right? 

I was so impressed with my walk into the Canyon on my last visit in 2010 (the South Kaibab Trail, I think) that I wanted to do it again. I think once you start walking in the Canyon, past walls of rock and through natural stone arches and along ledges with hundreds or thousands of feet of drop next to the path you are walking along, you get a different perspective on the place. You are no longer walking along a high desert plateau but are really following the Colorado River down into the depths of the Earth.

We didn't need to do a long hike here. We knew that we weren't going to make a dent in the full mile depth (that's depth, not walking distance) down to the bottom of the Canyon and we were very attentive when we came to the sign showing a shirtless white dude with a very sunburned back vomiting his guts out because he tried to walk to the Colorado and back in a single day. I've done my long hiking days. I've walked to Machu Picchu and Arches National Park's Delicate Arch and to the top of Mount Misen on Miyajima Island. I've also walked far enough in a day to find gorillas in the Ugandan mountains and fossils in the Canadian Rockies. I don't need to do every hike out there.

Walking up the Bright Angel Trail.

We picked Bright Angel Trail, a gently sloping and switchback-ing path wide enough to accommodate several humans or maybe a couple of humans and a mule train passing each other if they needed to. We saw no mules on the way down or up, by the way. But there was certainly evidence of prior mule activity. Mules don't wear diapers and their owners don't have to pick up the poop. Tread carefully.

We set our stopwatch on the phone for 15 minutes and walked down. 16 years ago, I was told that it would take about twice as long to get out as it took to walk in. I didn't time it that day but I did this year. It took us 25 to get out. Pretty close to double. 

I think seeing the inside of the Canyon is important. It is valuable to feel the temperature rise, even with a little walk down, and wanting to long for shade pockets to rest, particularly on the way up. Seeing and feeling and hearing the difference below the rim resonates. It's not the same as it is at the rim. Looking up at where you used to be (and let's be honest, we made it maybe 150 or 200 feet down into the Canyon so maybe 3-4% of the way down) and realizing how you got there was an essential experience for me, possibly because the land is so very flat at the Canyon rim. It's just an experience you can't get without making that walk.

We could have easily walked further. Not to the bottom of the Canyon all the way to the River but I will say the images from the bottom in the movie shown in the Visitor Center make getting there look awfully appealing. It's a completely different environment down there at the water's edge. 

There was a time I considered doing that. Walking all the way to the bottom and staying overnight in one of the huts they have down there a mile down into the Earth. That time is probably gone. I've accumulated a list of places I want to get to that is far, far longer than I will ever get to. I'm thinking my third trip to the Grand Canyon is likely my last. And If it is, it was a pretty good one. I feel confident I did three things in Bright Angel, Hermit's Rest and Desert View that I've never done before. What more could I ask for?

At Powell Point. It IS pretty grand.

Virginia Way

2024 is almost over. On to my last post of this calendar year and then on to 2025. Not that I'm wishing away my life or anything...

I know I said this earlier this month when I wrote about finding art in the New York City subway but I have to say (again) that I don't want another travel year like 2024 any time soon. Taking just two week-or-more trips with a lot of small business trips and a (very) few weekend getaways just ain't going to cut it from a travel perspective for me. Too much time on the road for too little sustained really-being-on-vacation time. Never again. 2025 will be much different, I'm sure. Particularly because we have three one week trips already booked and are working on a fourth.

One of the effects of so much work travel punctuated by so few real getaways this year was me creating little pockets of down time and exploration when I was really doing something different in an effort to replace lost real travel. In some cases, those eventually added up to real connected experiences. On the road for work, that meant finding interesting restaurants or exploring New York's nighttime attractions or ultimately venturing underground for a world-class art viewing experience one or two pieces at a time. When I was at home, that meant heading out to a series of spots around Northern Virginia or maybe as far south as Richmond to go indulge my new favorite at-home hobby of birdwatching.

Now, before 2020, I never would have thought of (1) considering anywhere I could day trip to as an honest to God vacation (and therefore worthy of this blog) and (2) exploring birdwatching beyond traveling halfway around the world. I know, that last one sounded strange. This year, those two things formed an important part of my travel narrative and one thing allowed that to happen: COVID-19.

Red-shouldered hawk, Three Lakes Park, Richmond. November 2024.

That's right: the global COVID pandemic that hit in 2020 and lasted realistically and dangerously at least until late 2021 changed my attitude both towards local travel and local birdwatching. 

On the travel side of things, it got me looking more closer at home for places to explore where I could realistically drive pretty easily for a few days or a whole week. The fact that I couldn't very safely get on a plane within the United States or get on a plane at all and come back from overseas travel without a negative COVID test (if I could even enter another country at all) forced me to look at the thing in my driveway or garage that usually was only used on travel to get me to the airport. 

That year, I made all sorts of local travel plans and took a couple of them, including a trip to Vermont in August of 2020 followed up by long weekends to Bethlehem, PA and Richmond, VA in the few months after that. Bethlehem? Richmond? Are you kidding me? I traded Costa Rica, Uganda, the Napa Valley and New Mexico in 2020 for suburban Philly and the former capital of the Confederacy? Are you kidding me? For real?

Yes. For real.

But you know what? It worked. It changed my attitude about value in places more locally. It removed my snobbery around having to get on a plane or a train to take a "real" vacation or getaway. There is a ton to do that's interesting without having to travel thousands of miles. Did it make me prefer southeastern Pennsylvania to sub-Saharan Africa? Not at all. But it's a heck of a lot easier to get to Bethlehem than Johannesburg. Places within driving distance can provide meaningful travel experiences. Shocker!!

Pileated woodpecker (with chick), Huntley Meadows Park, Alexandria. June 2024.

So let's talk how COVID changed how I look at birds, shall we? I wrote earlier that before 2020, we'd happily go birdwatching in just about any place that we could go on a plane...but...not here at home. Why is that? Well, honestly, because it was pretty easy to see birds that are different and usually way, way more exotic while out of town than we could see at home. Parrots in New Zealand? We are in! Bee-eaters and fish eagles in Africa? Oh yes!! But birds at home...meh! What's interesting about that?

In early 2020, I had never worked a full day at home in my life. In March that year I started doing it full time. And in between things like conference calls and checking fee proposals and following up on whatever I had asked people to do, I looked out the window occasionally. Not to deliberately see birds, because had I even thought about it, I figured there would be some sparrows, starlings, crows, robins and the occasional cardinal and that would be it. Ho-hum! But when I looked out, I did see birds. And they weren't all boring. What was that little brown bird making all that noise? Why does that sparrow-looking bird have a red head? And is that a woodpecker? And a different kind of woodpecker? All this in our back yard?

I didn't really need to go to the other side of the world to see some birds that were interesting. We have some right here at home. I started noticing.

White-breasted nuthatch, Fort C.F. Smith Park, Arlington. October 2024.

So how did we put all that change in attitude into action? Well, this year, it got us enjoying day trips or quick overnight or weekend trips to various parks within Virginia to build a continuous experience over pretty much every month of the year and mostly multiple times per month. And that's important for birdwatching in any one spot anywhere on the globe, because this is very much a seasonal experience. And by that, I mean the experience varies with the season. When we venture away from home, we get whatever birds might happen to be there whenever we happen to be traveling. Not so when we decide to do this at home. We can get continuity over the entire 12 months.

It also chilled us out a lot from the weekly rat race. It's definitely something we are going to continue to do and we are likely to continue to travel to different places within Virginia to do it. I'm also not likely to blog about this again. Not here in VA. This is my shot at this experience.

Great blue heron, Theodore Roosevelt Island, Arlington. October 2024.

This post is really not about searching for birds in Virginia, by the way. It's really about searching for birds around Washington, DC and Richmond. Not anywhere near even the whole state, you say? That's right. There's a lot more to explore still. And we will. We just didn't get there quite this year.

So what's so great about birding in two tiny little areas of Virginia? How about cedar waxwings in January? How about hawks pretty much everywhere we go? How about one of the largest populations of bald eagles in the world? How about all sorts of birds stopping to feed along annual migration routes? How about shorebirds and river birds? How about multiple species of owls and woodpeckers? 

This is definitely a hobby that takes patience and research and study and moving around to where you might have the best shot at seeing what you want and love to see. That last piece is where travel comes in. Because as thrilled we were at seeing Carolina wrens and house finches and downy woodpeckers and even a yellow-bellied sapsucker one time in our tiny little plot of fenced land out in back of our townhouse, we can't see all of that other stuff without traveling. At least a few miles anyway. And the more we move to different places, the greater our experience.

Great horned owl, Dyke Marsh Wildlife Preserve, Alexandria. February 2024.

Near our home in Arlington, we spend our birdwatching time mostly in four spots: Theodore Roosevelt Island off the George Washington Parkway in Arlington; Fort C.F. Smith Park off of Lorcum Lane in Arlington; Dyke Marsh Wildlife Preserve in Alexandria; and Huntley Meadows Park in Alexandria. We've tried other places locally, including Roaches Run Waterfowl Sanctuary, Great Falls Park, Monticello Park and Occoquan Wildlife Refuge but for proximity and birdlife, we like the first four the best.

So why these four? We can reliably see herons and ducks at Theodore Roosevelt and in the summer there's the odd greater egret and even an indigo bunting or two. At Dyke Marsh, there's a pair of nesting bald eagles there year round and I think we've seen at least one on every trip we've made there. C.F. Smith is about a mile from our house and so it's particularly my fallback if I want to go for a wander; I'm not likely to see something incredible there but there are a ton of (non-pileated) woodpeckers and a good variety of thrushes in the woods. Huntley Meadows is by far the best of the four. There's everything in that park. It's also the furthest away but that place is fantastic every time we've been.

And I do mean fantastic. And if I'm being totally honest, we saw a pileated woodpecker at C.F. Smith one time.

For the most part, our experiences in these parks are mostly the same thing over and over again. We keep adding species to our list (so I guess that's not really the same...) and we keep taking pictures of the same birds over and over again. But here's the thing about this hobby: the perfect picture is never going to exist. So as many cardinals and nuthatches and white-throated sparrows we have seen, we are likely to keep chasing the perfect picture of these birds for a long, long time. And I'll bet we've seen easily 100 species of birds in our trips in Virginia alone. And some (hi, kinglets) will not sit still and are about impossible to get any sort of reasonable picture of. The perfect picture is going to take a while with some species.

Then in late summer of 2023 (I know, it's not this year), something happened that changed a lot for us. I was up at C.F. Smith trying to see what I could find and I saw some small bird flitting around a tree at the southwest side of the property where the foliage is a little more dense. Looked like a sparrow but maybe smaller and it would not stay in one place. I managed to get a pic or two: yellow-rumped warbler. 

Say what? What the heck is a warbler?

Yellow-rumped warbler, Three Lakes Park, Richmond. November 2024.

Warblers are like the Easter eggs of birdwatching in Northern Virginia. Is seeing kingfishers or killdeers or ospreys or hawks or red-winged blackbirds in their native environments fun? Sure it is and they are obvious and out in the open and doing stuff worth watching and worth photographing. But in between all those birds in trees and on grass and water and in reeds and wherever else you can find things with wings, warblers lurk. Not out in the open. Not standing still. Difficult to find.

Why are warblers awesome? Because they generally only show up around our house in NoVA during migration season and they are hard to spot but when you see them, they are these exquisite little frenetic birds that are brightly and colorfully patterned and there are so many different kinds. Yellow-rumped. Yellow-throated. Pine. Blackburnian. Prothonotary. Palm. Cerulean. Hooded. Black-throated. Black-throated gray. Black-throated green. Black and white. American redstart. Kentucky. Nashville. I could go on and on and on here.

Finding one of these birds in a spot near to our own backyard was special. Then we took a weekend trip down to Dutch Gap Conservation Area near Richmond on our anniversary weekend (yes, we went to Richmond for our anniversary) in late April and found a number of other species of these little jeweled birds. This is the stuff!!! I thought it was exciting seeing a bald eagle. Warblers...I'm just saying...

Yellow-throated warbler (top) and prothonotary warbler (bottom), Dutch Gap Conservation Area, near Richmond. April 2024.

If birdwatching is really pretty satisfying and interesting near where we live, it is way more so near our state capital. I often think about Richmond being a big city, but it's not at all. The population of Richmond proper is about the same as the population of Arlington, which is all of 25.8 square miles (Richmond is about 2.5 times that size). And around Richmond, it's just rural. Which means lots of parks. And when that much open area is combined with the mighty James River flowing through town, that means birds aplenty.

This year we went down to Richmond on two separate long weekend trips to go birdwatching in the morning (there's other stuff to do in the afternoon when the birds are done being active). I expect next year, we'll probably do the same thing. 

House wren, Fort C.F. Smith Park, Arlington. July 2024.

Dutch Gap Conservation Area is a giant, 810 acres strong piece of land just down the James River to the south and east of Richmond. You could spend days exploring this place. We spent about five hours or so early in the morning until just about noonish. We weren't the only people. We ran into a number of other folks boating and fishing and yes...birdwatching. 

It was admittedly bigger than we possibly thought it could be. We figured we'd walk the loop trail that appeared to be a few miles long. We didn't get close. We can spend hours on the swamp trail at Theodore Roosevelt Island and that's less than two miles or maybe even a mile and a half long. We didn't stand a chance at Dutch Gap, particularly because birdwatching is not a speed hobby. 

We picked up some warbler sightings early in our time there and managed some waxwings and a woodpecker or two along with some distant ospreys. I'll remember this place for the warblers and the vast size of the place. Maybe there's a return trip but that place is daunting in its size.

We paired Dutch Gap in a weekend with Robious Landing Park on the west side of the city where we got more warbler sightings (although no great pictures) along with our most incredible owl sighting in our travels. The barred owl at the top of this post spent 20 or 30 minutes watching us and its two chicks that were exploring the forest. I'm sure it kept watching the chicks after we left. The way its head swiveled and its eyes followed our every movement was powerful. I have no doubt if we'd have made any move towards the two fluff balls under its watch that we'd have been divebombed and we would not have done well. Pretty cool watching something watching you that intently.

We also got a lot of value out of Three Lakes Park towards the north side of the city this fall. Some of these outdoor spaces that have been created around the city are just such great places to walk and see what you can find. When we visited in November the place was flush with ruby and golden-crowned kinglets and tufted titmice along with some cormorants and a spectacular look at a red-shouldered hawk. Probably the best viewing we've had of one of those birds. It helps when the birds are right on top of the swing set.

Greater yellowlegs, Huntley Meadows Park, Alexandria. September 2024.

There is no doubt we've just scratched the surface on birdwatching in and around Richmond, let alone in the rest of the state. There are so many great parks and open spaces to discover and so many birds out there on the "not seen" list. On the November trip to Richmond we stopped by the Potomac River in Westmoreland County to try to find some migrated loons but with no luck. And we've still got a ton of different warbler species to find.

I know I've already laid out why I've written this post as part of my travel journey in 2024. These weekend day trips and weekends away are not the best way to unwind and find some relief and wonder in this world. But for the time we are in these parks looking, we are generally relaxed and fascinated by what we find, even if we don't always see what we want in the way that we want it. I know I've written many a time on this blog that nature trips are a crap shoot and we've frequently been disappointed by what we have not found in parts around the globe. The great thing here about our birdwatching travels this year close to home is we are rarely disappointed. And if we are, there's always the next weekend or the weekend after that to have a do-over.

These next (almost) two paragraphs put a wrap on this post and for blogging in total for calendar year 2024. I am confident there are many more treks into nature to find birds, both in our home state and as far away as other continents. Of those three week-plus-long trips (with a fourth pending) that we have already planned in 2025, I'll be taking the big camera and doing some birdwatching on three of those four. But I'm also looking forward to our next trip to Richmond to uncover some new spot that we will fall in love with. And maybe one or two other places in Virginia. Who knows.

These last two posts this year have been different travel experiences than I've had in past years. But they are every bit a part of our 2024 travel experience as spending Lunar New Year in Singapore, completing our 50 U.S. states quest and roaming around the coast of Cornwall. I see a lot of this stuff in Virginia in our future. I just don't see me blogging about it. Happy new year! Bring on 2025.

Belted Kingfisher, Huntley Meadows Park, Alexandria. October 2024.

I'd be remiss if I didn't give some credit to some resources that have helped us a lot in our birdwatching this year. So here's a shoutout to a couple of organizations that have pointed us in the right direction a lot over the past year.

First, the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources has an excellent website featuring a Virginia Bird & Wildlife page that will give you all sorts of options for finding birds all over the Commonwealth. We've used this to find parks and sites locally and when we've traveled within Virginia, both in Richmond and other spots.

Secondly, there's Merlin, the app produced by the Cornell University Ornithology Lab that will identify birds by sight and sound for you. I most always have the app on when we are walking and I'm checking it frequently. It's allowed us to find all sorts of cool birds when we've been traveling and we are very appreciative of the Lab for keeping this sort of resource up to date.

If you have any interest in traveling anywhere to see birds in Virginia, I'd recommend using those two resources to make your travels easier. Happy hunting!

The Words Of The Prophets

This year of travel has been strange. And by that, I mean really, really strange. I spent more nights in hotels in 2024 than I have ever spent in any single prior year I've been alive. I took the longest single trip (to Singapore, Cambodia and Malaysia) of my life. And I feel more weary from packing and getting on trains or in cars or in planes and then unpacking at the other end than I have ever felt. That all should make me super, super happy. But somehow, I ended up writing fewer blog posts about travel than I have written since I started this blog 11-1/2 years ago. Go figure.

I blame that whole situation on one thing: business travel. It's changed a normal travel year into a very, very non-traditional travel year. And not for the better. I've been on the road a whole lot but a whole lot of that whole lot hasn't been all for me. Or us. Two one week plus vacations is not enough for an entire year. It's honestly been a bit of a drag. But it's also driven me to change how I gather value from travel. This year, I've taken to squeezing in little experiences that make me feel like I've been traveling in between all the work assignments. It's a way different way of exploring than I ever would have thought of five or ten or even two years ago. And I don't want to do this as a substitute for real travel again.

But it has been a huge part of my 2024 travel narrative. So to close 2024, I'm going to write two posts about how this year has featured a lot of trips that are discontinuous but have reinforced a common theme and which ultimately, have built into something cohesive and coherent, even if these experiences were assembled in a way that I don't want to do again.  But both are part of my travel narrative this year. 

But before I get to all that, a little rant about business travel.

Mary Miss' "Framing Union Square". Union Square (L / N / Q / R / W / 4 / 5 / 6).

I dislike traveling for work. It sounds great (I mean it's free travel, right?) but it's never as fun as it seems like it should be (probably the work thing...). At its worst it can involve early morning breakfasts followed by a full work day with working lunches concluded with dinners with coworkers that last for hours until late into the night. It can be really pretty draining. Way more work than travel. You can probably tell by all the "work"s in this paragraph.

I guess I've been fortunate to travel some, but not a ton, for work over my career. I don't really think I've spent a lot of time on the road for my employers but for sure I've traveled a bit. Over my 30 plus years working I've ended up in hotels in Boston, San Francisco, Dallas, Chicago, Los Angeles, Orlando, Houston, Austin, Jersey, upstate New York, Charlotte, Roanoke (yes...Roanoke), Miami, suburban / rural Maryland (twice), Denver and maybe one or two other spots.

But over the last 15 months or so, I've had a regular travel-for-work gig and it's been to one of my favorite places of all: New York City. When I first took on this assignment, I spent my time in the City doing something resembling what I described two paragraphs ago: going to the office; going back to my hotel (which was really very close to the office); eating dinner (also very close to the office and the hotel); and then repeating until it was time to go home. After a couple of months of doing that I decided I had to do more. I had to accept that I was there for work but I also wanted to maximize the opportunity that I had to be living rent-free in New York two or three days at a time. I had to make my nights something more.

William Wegman's "Stationary Figures". 23 St (F / M) station.

So in January of this year (four months or so into my NYC assignment), I decided to do start exploring. I found izakayas and ramen places. I went to the 9/11 Memorial. I tried out different hotels. I went to a jazz club. I met up with old friends. I went to the opera. I explored Grand Central Terminal. I went to a play. I found different ways to see the city. It's definitely been rewarding for me. I feel like I've got something out of this in addition to my employer getting something out of me. 

I knew my time where I'd be making regular trips to New York was going to end at some point and in about the middle of this year I decided the appropriate time to cut this off would be at the end of 2024. I have to admit that deciding to terminate this assignment was sad. No more free meals at world class restaurants. No more hotel points or Amtrak points. No more opportunities to explore my favorite city for (almost) free. But it had to be done. 

I decided a needed a personal send-off. And I decided that send-off should be art focused. Do you know how many art museums there are in New York City? Me either. And it really didn't matter that much because my plan wasn't to explore art at the MoMA or the Met or the Guggenheim or the Frick or the Whitney or anywhere else that had the word museum in it. My plan was to go see some art for free. Or maybe an admission fee of $2.90 at a time. To do that, I headed underground. 

Leo Villareal's "Hive". Bleecker Street (6) and Broadway-Lafayette St (B / D/ F / M) Station.

Did you know that one of the best collections of art in New York City is in the Subway? Yes, the thing that has trains that take New Yorkers all over the City. The Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) has been purchasing and commissioning permanent and temporary works of art by emerging, famous and non-famous artists for decades. They have amassed quite a collection. Some of their art sponsorships are ephemeral (for posters that fill unused advertising space on Subway cars) but there is a lot that is not. And a lot of their collection is pretty world-class.

Now for sure, viewing art in the Subway is way different than doing it in an art museum. You can decide to roam around the Subway system randomly and just look at what you like as I sometimes do in new museums that I visit, but the collection is pretty de-centralized and, in most cases, you'll have to get on a train to go find the next piece. And it might not be something you appreciate. 

Their collection also sometimes takes some finding. They are not all like William Wegman's "Stationary Figures" ("Station"ary...get it?), which I found myself staring at when my F train stopped at 23rd Street station one night on the way back from dinner in the first half of this year.

Fortunately for the wannabe Subway art appreciator, there's a guide to art on the MTA's website and it's organized by borough. So for this last not-a-resident-but-so-in-love-with-New-York work/tourist quest, I decided to organize at least one night per trip starting in August around going to see some art, even if it was just one piece. If I could do it as part of a trip to dinner or some other spot in the City I wanted to see, then I'd do that. If not, maybe I'd just have to make a special trip. If it had to be a special trip, theoretically it's a $2.90 admission fee (the price of a ride on the Subway), assuming I can go see the piece I wanted to see and come back without exiting the system. Do you know how much it costs to get into the MoMA or the Met? $30. $2.90 is a bargain.

Ann Schaumberger's "Urban Oasis". 5 Av / 59 St (N / R / W) Station.

My intentional visits to the MTA's fantastic art collection started on a Tuesday night in August with a trip on the Q Train to legendary hot dog stand Papaya King on the Upper East Side (or UES to New Yorkers). Two hot dogs with mustard and 'kraut and a papaya drink if you must know.

The 86 Street Q-Train-only station less than two blocks from Papaya King houses Chuck Close's 2017 installation "Subway Portraits". That was my first quest. To see that piece. It's a series of large scale portraits intending to depict regular New Yorkers you might encounter on the Subway. That is if you consider Philip Glass, Lou Reed and Close himself to be regular New Yorkers. The works are huge, spanning from almost the floor of the station to almost the ceiling. And they are incredibly impressive. If these things were on display at the MoMA or somewhere else, people would be standing and gazing at these things in wonder rather than just hurrying past when I stopped for a while before heading to Papaya King. 

Like many works of art within the MTA system, "Subway Portraits" are executed in super durable materials. Mosaics of glass and ceramic or just straight up ceramic tile. This has to be one of the most hostile environments that someone can intentionally decide to place art and so it makes sense that the choice of medium be something that can withstand a lot of abuse. And I don't mean intentional. There's just a lot of stuff that happens in the Subway that is pretty down and dirty. Beautiful things need to be able to protect themselves. 

Close up of three "Subway Portraits". Eye. Eye. Nose/moustache.

On my way back from 86th Street, I stopped by the 5th Avenue/59th Street Station on the east edge of Central Park to see Ann Schaumberger's "Urban Oasis", her de-centralized tribute to the animals at the Central Park Zoo. I love animals (just not zoos) and some of those in "Urban Oasis" hit a chord big time, including the monkeys (I was born in the Year of the Monkey), the penguins and the macaws. 

I feel the representation within Schaumberger's work is definitely different from "Subway Portraits". And by that I mean less high art (if that's even a term and if it is, I know I'm being a snob). I can't see the monkeys and the penguins and the macaws on the edge of Central Park being on display in some museum in the City. And that's totally OK. On some level, these works are supposed to enliven commutes and provide relief from what is potentially a stressful rat race in America's largest city. They don't all need to be worthy of hanging in the MoMA or the Met.

I headed back to my hotel with some satisfaction that I had started something travel related that could be pretty special and I was doing it for almost free.

Over September and October and November, I continued to explore. Wegman's Wiemaraners on the way to dinner when I was staying at the Hyatt House on 28th Street. Stumbling across Tom Otterness' little figures who seemed to be everywhere in the "Life Underground" installation at the 14 St Station. A special trip to Ann Hamilton's transcription of the United States Declaration of Independence and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights in her "CHORUS" work at the newly constructed WTC / Cortlandt Station. Hamilton's work is inspiring and uplifting, as flawed as the Declaration of Independence might be in its attitude towards the "all men" who are "created equal". It was calming and reassuring on an early November night.

Otterness' whimsical little men and women and rats and crocodiles and other sorts of bronze figures are an amusing distraction when you are not in a hurry to catch your Subway train on the way home or to work or wherever else you are headed. I love the image of these little mini-men taking care of business (including toting around giant Subway tokens) while us full size humans are passing them almost without a thought and largely unaware.

Tom Otterness' "Life Underground".  14 St (A / C / E / L) Station.

As I explored, I started to notice something as I was going from one of these installations to another, roaming around stations (some of these things are huge!!!) trying to find the latest work on my list. And that is that these things are EVERYWHERE. I started to notice more art installations that I wasn't looking for than I was looking for. In some stations (yes, Union Square and Times Square-42 St, I'm looking at you), there is more to see around every corner. Not just one piece of artwork, but multiple works in a single station. Everywhere. I'm telling you.

I visited stations all over Midtown on my way to work or dinner or somewhere else and bumped into works of art when I got to platforms or when I entered stations or when I got where I was going. Roots and plants and pipes with words of wisdom written on them near Bryant Park. Art Deco-like women performing theater and dance on the way to Lincoln Center. Recessed little square boxes in the underground walls at Times Square. And of course, I saw them while I was riding the Subway itself, fleeting glimpses of mosaics or glass seen through the open train doors during a brief stop at a station or even briefer looks when viewed from an express train that has no intent of stopping at some stations.

Some provided unexpected surprises and got a smile or two. During a stop at 23 St on the R or W (can't remember which), I looked up from my phone or whatever else I was paying attention to and saw a series of hats of all types rendered in tiles on the walls. And yes, when someone waiting for the train was standing in front of one at just the right height, it looked like they were wearing the hat behind them. I get it. Funny. Who wears a top hat any more?

Here's the other thing I noticed: there were other people noticing too. I was not the only one stopping and looking and studying and taking pictures. These things work. They ARE appreciated by people moving through this system, even if it looks like most are just hustling by because that's exactly what they are doing.  

Had to stop and look on my way to the 42nd Street Shuttle. 

It's now December 2024 and I just finished my last three nights in New York for this year. That brings me to a total of 44 nights in the City in the past 12 months. What a ride! Or more accurately a stay, I guess. That's probably not going to happen again but who knows. 

I didn't deliberately visit any Subway art on this last trip despite having a couple of spots left on my list. My off hours in December were spent with friends who had made the trip up to NYC with me to go explore the City in all its pre-Christmas glory while I slaved at work. And because I knew that's what December held, I knew when I visited in November that would likely be my last underground art time in 2024.  

So I had to do something special.

Roy Lichtenstein's "Times Square Mural". Times Sq-42 St (1 / 2 / 3 / 7 / N / Q / R / W / S) Station.

One of my favorite artists of all time is Roy Lichtenstein. Put him up there for me with Warhol, Jasper Johns, Gerhard Richter, J. M. W. Turner, Van Gogh, Mondrian, Magritte and likely too many others that I can't think of right now. I am always drawn to Lichtenstein's renditions of ordinary objects, famous works of art and works that look like they are torn from a comic strip in the style of those same American comic strips. It seems like most of the times when I see Lichtenstein's works in museums, they are among my favorites and I usually end up with a few pics of something by Roy on my phone.

And yes, there's a Lichtenstein in the Subway. Like an original work commissioned especially for the New York City underground train system. It's called "Times Square Mural" and it's at the Times Sq-42 St station (which is admittedly enormous) in the middle of a transit area that seems to be constantly flowing with commuters and tourists and art aficionados passing from the street to the Subway or one line to another or the Subway to the street. It's a futuristic Lichtenstein-yellow Subway car pulling up to the platform at 42nd Street and it's just glorious. And it's all yours to see for the low, low price of $2.90. What a bargain.

I found this work on my last underground art pilgrimage. I went there deliberately and specially to see it. I wasn't passing to or from Times Square or anywhere else. I rode the Subway specifically to see this piece and lay eyes on it for myself. It was well worth the price of admission.

If you decide to ever go seek out some of the works in the MTA's permanent collection, I am sure you will find something that resonates with you. I am also sure that you will find some other kinds of art down in the Subway while you go looking. And I don't mean more stuff hanging on the walls or little bronze men. By that I mean you'll likely find someone, somewhere performing some music. Rock, folk, classical, rap, whatever. I did when I went to see the "Times Square Mural" and it elevated that experience to something greater than I could have possibly imagined.

It was opera. 

Yes, standing in front of Roy's glorious mural when I visited on a Wednesday night, there was a young tenor (he's on the left in the pic below) standing in front of an "Opera Collective" sign with a collection bucket nearby singing the most gorgeous vocal parts to some sort of classical music coming out of the boombox next to him. It was inspiring and uplifting and impressive and spectacular. And it made my night as the perfect accompaniment to that magnificent yellow train pulling into some imagined 42nd Street station.

This aria emphasized to me the point of getting out there. Go. Explore. Find. Be curious. Adventure. Seek out something that you love or may love or will love. And every so often, you'll find it. And sometimes, it will be amazing and incredible and even better than you ever thought it (whatever it is) could be. Travel...I'm telling you...